


take us far away then bring us back together

by miss-minnelli (sherlollyshipperalltheway)



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Abby is a BADASS, Angst, Erin and Holtz should just communicate, F/F, Gen, as per usual, secret ghostbusting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-19 08:58:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8199061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherlollyshipperalltheway/pseuds/miss-minnelli
Summary: "It was an awkward goodbye for some of them, Erin and Jillian, particularly. They’d finally risen to the occasion and admitted their feelings for each other and they had been dating for the past six months. But now that the Ghostbusters were over, Erin had found someplace new to work. In Massachusetts. At Harvard. Without Holtz."The Ghostbusters aren't allowed to hunt ghosts anymore, so they all try to move on, but something isn't letting them.Alternate Title: We've Got Ourselves a Sentimental Ghost!





	1. The End

**Author's Note:**

> So I've been trying to get motivated to write a fic in this fandom since I saw the movie in July, and I finally found my inspiration while randomly listening to One Hear/Million Voices by New Empire, which is what the title is inspired by as well. 
> 
> I've been reading the works in this fandom for months and I'm so excited to finally contribute! 
> 
> This starts out pretty sad, but I promise the later chapters will not be quite so depressing. I have to build up to the action somehow, and what better way than angst??

They were all crying. Constantly, it seemed

The Ghostbusters were finished. The mayor had decided that he was done funding their research, because there hadn’t been a ghost emergency in the past year. Sure, there’s been little sightings and minor busts, but nothing severe, and he declared they were wasting precious tax dollars. Additionally, people were starting to find out that the New York City government was funding the Ghostbusters and starting to discredit the mayor, some even declaring him unfit to run the city. 

After the meeting, his assistant, Jennifer, had quietly told them that if they didn’t vacate their firehouse and immediately stop their research they would be arrested and face 5-20 in prison. The mayor was clearly more concerned about what other people thought of him than the well being of his beloved city.

They’d fought their hardest against the decree, but after Holtz ended up in jail for a night, they’d agreed to the mayor’s terms and locked their equipment away in a government owned storage locker. They’d packed up their rooms in the firehouse, and found new places to live and work, some not even in the state. 

And now it was time to say goodbye.

 

It was an awkward goodbye for some of them, Erin and Jillian, particularly. They’d finally risen to the occasion and admitted their feelings for each other and they had been dating for the past six months. But now that the Ghostbusters were over, Erin had found someplace new to work. In Massachusetts. At Harvard. Without Holtz.

_“Holtz? Can we talk?” Erin said with a light knock on Holtz’s (and mostly her own, now) bedroom door. Things had been tense around the HQ since the news from the mayor, and Erin had yet to tell Holtz about the new position as a professor of particle physics at Harvard. Holtz, on the other hand, was not making a large move; she was only going to the other side of the city to work for her mentor, Rebecca Gorin, who was head of the science department at a New York public school (she had grown tired of teaching at the college level after so many years) that needed more teachers. Holtz thought she would be good at teaching kids since she basically was one, and Rebecca easily got her the job._

_“Yeah, sure. Come in, babe.” replied Holtz, cherishing being able to call the brunette pet names before their relationship was shattered in pieces on her bedroom floor. Of course, she didn’t know exactly what Erin was going to say and where she was going to go, but the other woman had been so secretive this week and had barely kissed her girlfriend, that Holtz knew what was coming._

_Erin slowly crossed the room and perched on the edge of the bed. Jillian was curled up at the near the pillows, almost waiting to be crushed and it broke Erin’s heart._

_“Jill, Harvard offered me a job. And I took it. Please don’t be mad.”_

_‘Mad’ wasn’t the correct word to describe Holtzmann at that moment. ‘Broken’ was a more suitable choice. Holtz didn’t even reply to Erin’s admission. She just blinked and a single tear rolled slowly down her cheek._

_“It’s not that I don’t love y—” Erin started._

_“Don’t” Holtz cut her off harshly, sitting up. Her voice softened. “I don’t think I can take a beautiful let-down speech right now. I think you should just go.”_

_Erin bit her lip. She didn’t want to break up. Harvard was only about five hours away from the city, and they could’ve made it work. She almost said something, but it seemed like Holtz was pretty adamant that they were breaking up._

_A moment later, Erin nodded, stood, and made her way from the room, not daring to let herself glance back._

  

The two had been amicable for the past week or so, as everyone had been making arrangements and cleaning up the old workspace, but they hadn’t shared a personal moment or spoken about their relationship since that night.

Holtz had been spending a lot of her time with Patty, who was moving to California to pursue a master’s degree in history at UCLA—she wasn’t sure exactly what time period yet. The team had questioned why she wanted to be so far away, and as Patty had put it, “I’m tired of all the damn snow.” 

They all knew that wasn’t completely the truth. Everyone was reacting to the heart-wrenching news in a different way. Holtz couldn’t bear to leave New York, since it was all she’d ever known, Erin threw herself right back into what she had always been at least reasonably good at, Patty was getting as far away as she could from the sadness, and Abby, well no one was quite sure what Abby was going to do. 

While everyone else was making plans to move on, at least in theory, Abby was just sitting at the kitchen table and staring sadly at a proton pack. This team, this research, this job had been her life. Her _whole_ life, pretty much since she’d gotten her doctorate. She had convinced herself that she wasn’t good at anything else. As far as the others could tell, she seemed to be spiraling into a depression, and they didn’t know what to do about it.

It hurt Erin to watch her best friend fall apart like this, but she couldn’t stay here, just to help her.

She was afraid it she did, she would crumble as well. But she was determined not to abandon her friend for good.

 

The ladies were standing in an awkward circle outside the firehouse with their luggage. Patty checked her cell phone: 4:14. Her flight was scheduled to leave JFK at 6:30.

“I’ve got to go, you guys,” she said and everybody started crying again. 

Abby was first to throw her arms around Patty. “I’m going to miss you so much,” she said into Patty’s torso. 

“You too, Abs. Promise you’ll call when you’re all settled in your new place?” 

“Promise. As long as you call when you get to California.”

“Deal. C’mere Erin,” Patty said, letting go of Abby and beckoning Erin toward her. “I’ll miss you, ya crazy pile of tweed.”

“Hey!” Erin laughed through her tears. “I haven’t worn tweed in at least a week. I’m going to miss you Patty. Good luck in LA.”

Lastly, Patty wrapped Holtz up in a big bear hug. Apparently, they’d already said everything that needed to be said, so they just hugged and cried quietly for a minute before Patty pulled away, saying that she had to go. 

“Goodbye, you guys. Thank you for the best, and weirdest, two years of my life. I wouldn’t change it for the world. I love you guys.”

The other ladies chorused back their love for their historian and waved goodbye as she got into her cab.

 

Erin was next, as her new car was parked outside the firehouse, all loaded up for her new life. Faced with having to say goodbye to her ex-girlfriend, Holtzmann practically curled into herself.

Erin’s tears started for the third time that day, and she decided she needed to get the hell out of there. She pulled Abby in for a tight hug. “I promise, I’m only a phone call away, if you ever need me for anything, Abby. I mean it. I won’t let you out of my life a second time. You’re my best friend, okay?” 

Abby almost bitterly said that this felt just like the last time Erin had left, but instead she just hugged the taller woman back and returned the sentiments. “Call me if Harvard gets too boring.”

Erin nodded with a half-smile, and turned to say goodbye to Holtz, but found she was nowhere in sight.

“She must’ve gone back inside,” reasoned Abby. “I could go see?”

Erin shook her head, holding back a sob. “No, she clearly doesn’t want to see me. Tell her I love, will you?”

This time, Abby’s mouth moved faster than her filter and her bitterness showed. “If you loved her, if you loved us, you wouldn’t be leaving, would you?”

“That’s not fair!” Erin shouted. “I love you both _so much_.”

“Have a safe trip, Erin,” said Abby, and she turned around and walked back in to the firehouse, to collect Holtz and get her to her new home.

 

Abby made it to the second floor of the fire station in time to see Erin drive off. She then spotted Holtz in the corner fiddling with two little pieces of metal. Sliding down the wall to crouch next to the blonde, Abby spoke. “Come on, we gotta get you to that new apartment. Dr. Gorin’s going to be expecting you to be in tip-top shape for tomorrow’s classes.”

“Does any of it really matter?” asked Holtz, not looking up from her metal.

Abby bit the inside of her cheek. Holtz had just uttered her own sentiments. Precisely why she hadn’t bothered to find a new job. None of it mattered. They weren’t allowed to do the very thing the all loved, and by default, they now were being separated. Why should she even try?

With a sudden rush of will-power, the brunette snapped herself out of her self-pity. She might have lost all motivation in the world, but Holtz was going to inspire a room full of young minds the next day, and Abby wasn’t going to stand in the way of that. 

“Yes Holtzmann, it does matter, because those kids need someone the way you needed Dr. Gorin. Someone to inspire them to be their best selves. So let’s get our asses off this floor, and we’ll go unpack stuff at your new apartment. Cool?”

Holtz grunted, but pushed herself off the floor and followed Abby down the stairs, out the door of their former home, and into a cab, leaving behind the best chapter of her life.


	2. The Next Three Months

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still kind of a mopey chapter, but don't worry, the weird stuff is coming soon!!

Holtzmann found her calling. Well, her second calling. ghost-busting would always what she’d been made for, but teaching was almost as amazing. She’d never known how excited a room full of high school kids would be to see Dr. H. in action, teaching science.

Two of the senior girls in her sixth period class even told her that she’d inspired them to study engineering in college.

But, after the school day was over, Holtz went home to an empty apartment and ate dinner alone. About once a week, Dr. Gorin invited Holtz over for dinner, which was lovely, but she never stayed too long, because Rebecca was in a beautiful relationship, and Holtz couldn’t handle seeing so much love between Rebecca and her wife, when her own love had been so recently ripped from her life.

Abby also visited a few times a week, but usually later in the evenings. She’d never tell Jillian what she was doing all day, and the blonde feared Abby was just wallowing in grief. Admittedly, if it weren’t for her students, Holtz was pretty sure she’d be doing that as well. 

They watched movies together, ate Chinese food, and pretended everything was normal. Sometimes they Skyped Patty, who had lots of stories about the master’s students half her age and the newfangled slang they were teaching her. They never talked about or to Erin.

Holtz wondered about that sometimes. Why did it hurt so much more, for both of them, that Erin left, as opposed to Patty? She had a few theories. Perhaps it was simply because she was still desperately in love with Erin. Or maybe she’d had an easier time accepting Patty’s departure because she knew her friend was pursuing a degree she’d always wanted, when Erin had just reverted back to exactly who she had been before the Ghostbusters. Besides, Patty had said she might move back to New York after her two-year program, since it was her true home.

Aside from all that, the most obvious reason for the lack of contact was that Erin had seemingly cut off all ties with the group as soon as she left. That hadn’t been part of the mayor’s orders, and the other three women were staying close contact, but they hardly ever heard from Erin, who seemed to have adopted her boring, friendless, unpleasant professor persona again.

 

Patty was enjoying getting her master’s degree. She really was. History was her _thing_. It always had been, and she’d been planning on getting a master’s for quite some time now. If the Ghostbusters had still been in business, she never would have left the city, and would have night classes at one of New York’s many universities.

After about a month of studies, the history buff settled on an area of study: American history from 1880-1950. Most of the ghosts the women had busted came from around this time period, and it had made Patty even more interested in these specific years. You had pissed of black folks who were no longer slaves, but were still being treated horribly. You had women who wanted to vote (and have other basic human rights). And, you had both world wars, and the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. 

She’d been on a few dates, and had taken a slight interest in one of her suitors, but Patty was so busy, that she wasn’t too focused on getting a boyfriend.

The historian missed her friends. She missed sleeping next door to three of her best pals in the world, and she hated what this split did to their friendship as a whole. She Skyped Holtz and Abby, both individually and together, and she texted Holtz at least twice a day, but she was having a harder time keeping in contact with Erin. Not for lack of trying, though. Patty texted the physicist several times a week, but her replies were sporadic, and never very long.

  

Erin was Fine with a capital ‘F’. She was so fine that she cried herself to sleep every other night. She felt so fine that she regularly didn’t leave her apartment for the entire weekend, just staring at old texts between her and Holtz. About once a day, Erin _almost_ called Holtz. One day, she actually did by accident, but hung up right away. Holtz texted her in clipped sentences, asking if everything was alright. Erin desperately wanted to tell her no, nothing was alright. Her coworkers were cold and unfriendly, her students were mostly uninterested and entitled, and most of all she missed the Ghostbusters, especially Jillian, more than she’d ever missed anything in her life. Instead, she replied with, “Yeah. Sorry. Accident.”

The second time you become all alone in the world is harder than the first, Erin found, because so recently, she’d been part of a close-knit group of strong ladies, and now most of them couldn’t bear to speak to her. She felt bad for not trying harder to keep in touch with Patty, the only former Ghostbusters still making an effort, but she felt like she’d already ruined so much, what would it matter if she ruined one more friendship?

  

Abby kept a tight lid on what she was doing during the day. Holtz didn’t even have any idea. She was pretty sure the engineer thought her friend was lying in bed with soup every day for hours which, she might add, would have been a normal reaction to losing her best friend _again_. At first, Abby had been rather depressed and lacking in intrinsic motivation, however, she had quickly snapped out of it. Now, she was vaguely keeping up that front to discourage speculation about her _actual_ projects.

The government was wrong. Specifically, about the lack of need for a team of ghost-busting ladies. Just because there hadn’t been a high-level ghost army attack on New York City in a year didn’t mean there weren’t still a lot of ghosts out there, and the mayor didn’t understand the significance of that.

Abby wasn’t about to sit around and wait for the ghosts of the city to band together and attack again. After all, that was basically what had happened last time (with a little help from Rowan). No, sir. She was going to do something about it.

The mayor’s office was keeping a close eye on her storage locker, so she couldn’t retrieve the old equipment. Instead, she set about recreating all of their previous inventions with help of notes from Holtz’s original prototypes and scrap metal from various alleys. That was, in fact, how Holtz had built them originally. Additionally, she began the planning stages of creating a ghost lure so she could get the ghosts to come to her apartment (where the mayor wasn’t keeping watch) and bust them there.

Two months in, she had recreated two proton packs, a containment unit, and half of her ghost lure, but none of her projects could fill the void of working alone. She’d worked alone briefly after Erin and before Holtzmann, but she’d never felt so lonely. For the first time in their friendship, Holtz had something different that impassioned her and Abby wasn’t a part of it. Granted, Holtz likely would’ve dropped everything to come and help if Abby told her what she was working on, but that was beside the point. She couldn’t tell Holtz, because if someone in the government found out what she was doing, she’d be arrested and she couldn’t risk bringing her friend down with her. Patty was so far away that she didn’t want to worry her, and Erin, well, Erin was gone. For good this time, it seemed.


	3. The Week Things Got Weird

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lil bit of a short one, but stick with me. the fun is coming!!

Strange things started happening to Holtz during the first week of November. Well, stranger things than usual.

For example, one morning she woke up to find that every single bobby pin and hair-tie in her house was gone. She did her best to brush it off as something she’d done herself, losing them all by accident somehow, but something was nagging in the back of her head telling her that this wasn’t her own mistake. Grumbling, she walked to the drugstore on the way to work, and as she caught a glimpse of herself with her hair down, she reluctantly remembered how much Erin loved running her fingers through it.

The next day, she opened her laptop to find that her browser was opened to Erin’s Facebook profile. She _definitely_ hadn’t been Facebook stalking Erin recently. Nope nope nope. Shaking her head, she figured she could’ve opened the page instinctually some time the previous evening.

When a majorly weird thing happened for the third time in one week, Holtz rightfully got worried. The back wall of her living room was covered in big black letters that spelled out “Don’t you regret losing her?” Below the question, someone, or _something_ , had taped up a picture of Erin pressing a sweet kiss onto a giggling Holtz’s cheek. 

The engineer’s eyes widened so much it hurt. “Oh, shit. Either I have a really invasive woman for a best friend, or I’ve got a ghost.”   

 

Patty was a very organized woman. She kept track of where she put her belongings, and she never lost _anything_. So when she couldn’t find her car keys on the morning of her midterm exams, she was pissed as fuck. Thankfully, she was able to catch a ride with someone else in her class who lived nearby. 

When Patty got back home, however, she was more upset than before. Her keys were sitting on the dining room table in the bowl where they belonged. There was no question that Patty had looked in the damn bowl. Right then, she knew something wasn’t normal in her apartment. 

The events of the following day confirmed her suspicions. She sat down at her laptop after a long evening of studying to watch How to Get Away with Murder, but when she pressed ‘play’, the TV show didn’t start. Instead, she found that she was watching a video Abby had taken of her and Holtz grooving to some Cyndi Lauper song.

If asked, Patty would swear that seeing the video didn’t make her cry.

That next Tuesday, she poured herself a bowl of cereal and sat down at the table. Moments later, an envelope appeared out of thin air and slid across the table towards her. Slack-jawed, she opened the envelope to see a plane ticket to New York City for later that day.

“Well, there’s no way I bought a plane ticket without knowing about it. Holy Fuck.”

 

It was Friday night, and Erin had a hot date with a movie she’d rented from iTunes, but when she opened her laptop, Skype was open. Erin hadn’t Skyped anyone in at least half a year, but the ‘recent history’ tab contradicted her. Seventeen times. It said she’d called Holtzmann seventeen times. That was impossible.

The brunette was on edge for the next few days, but nothing else happened.

On Tuesday, there was a conference she was supposed to be attending in a small town about an hour away. Erin got into her car and saw that miraculously, her gas tank was completely full. Just yesterday it had been dangerously empty and she’d been planning on going to the gas station right away. When she opened her phone to the GPS and directions to New York City automatically started.

“Fucking hell.”

 

It didn’t take Abby quite as long as the others to figure out that everything wasn’t _normal_. 

One of the bigger signs was that projects that were securely situated in their places started falling off her workbench. She practically squealed in excitement when the third piece of equipment went flying toward the ground.

Perhaps the strangest thing to happen to Abby in the past three months was a call on Tuesday morning from Erin.

“Hello? Is this Professor Stick Up Her Ass?” 

“Abby, listen—”

“Oh, is _now_ a good time for you? We do always seem to do things on your schedule.”

“Please—”

“Erin, I hope you realize what you’ve done to Holtz—” 

“ABBY! I HAVE A GHOST!”

“…You too?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love comments <333


	4. Sentimentality

“ABBY! I HAVE A GHOST!”

“…You too?”

Erin breathed out, glad to finally get this off her chest. “Yeah. Or else, somebody is really fucking with me. But I’m thinking it’s a ghost. Wait, did you say _you_ have a ghost?”

“Yeah. Weird shit’s been happening a lot in my lab—uh my apartment.” 

“Did you say lab?”

“Shhhh! Listen, are you busy today because—hang on…” Abby stopped because she heard a knock on her apartment door. She wondered who that could be, since she hadn’t ordered Chinese food. She peered through the peep-hole. “Holtz?” 

Erin’s face brightened instinctually. “Is Holtz there?”

Abby huffed. “Apparently. Now shut up for a second.” She opened the door. “Holtz, what are you doing here? I never told you where I live.”

The blonde smirked. “And for good reason. You’ve got a whole thing going on here. And it’s a good thing you do, ‘cause I got a ghost. So does Patty. She’s on a plane on her way here. Who’s on the phone?”

“Erin.” 

“Oh.”

“I’m still here, you know,” Erin said into Abby’s ear. 

Abby winced. “Shit, sorry. So you probably heard that. We all apparently have a ghost fucking with us. So, um, I’m still—we’re still mad as hell at you, but you’re a part of this, so you’d better come down here. I’ll text you my address.”

“Already on my way.” 

Abby hung up the phone and turned to ask Holtz how she’d figured out where she lived, only to find that Holtz was already poking around her workbench. “Is this a ghost lure?” 

The brunette smiled at her friend, proud of herself. “Yeah. Well, it’s part of one. And I built two proton packs so far.”

“Alright, Abby! Now let’s finish this stuff before the others get here.” 

The two women worked in silence for a while before Abby finally spoke. “Are you going to be okay working with her?”

“Are you?” replied Holtz, not looking up from the third proton pack. 

“Okay, touché. But seriously, Holtz. I’m worried about you.”

Holtzmann sighed and put down her pliers. “My ghost left me a message. It said, ‘Don’t you regret losing her?’ and fuck it, I do. But I’m so angry she left. Let’s just sort out this ghost thing and then maybe we’ll talk about it, or maybe she’ll dash off to Harvard and I’ll be alone again. Can we just get this done, please?”

Abby’s eyes were wide, but she nodded in agreement.

  

Three hours later, Erin showed up at Abby’s apartment. “Jesus, you drive fast. Isn’t Harvard like five hours away? It’s been three since you called me!” exclaimed Abby in lieu of a greeting.

Erin shrugged. “My ghost filled up my gas tank, and set up my GPS for the city, so I started driving here pretty much as soon as I got in the car, which was about five hours ago. So, yeah. Didn’t drive faster than the speed limit.” 

“Safety first,” muttered Holtz from the corner, where she was putting the finishing touches on the ghost lure. 

“Yep.”

 

Another hour later, and Patty was lugging her suitcase out of a cab and up to Abby’s door. Holtz practically attacked her in a hug and Erin tried not to cry at how cold her own greeting had been.

When Patty asked where to put her suitcase, Abby made a face. “Ummmm, well I really wasn’t expecting to have three people sleeping over, so I don’t have a guest room…or a full length couch. I do, however, have a lovely full sized air mattress we can put in the living room.”

Patty gave a laugh at the idea of sleeping on an air mattress. “No way in hell am I sleeping on a bed filled with a fucking _deep breath_ after that damn flight. I’ll be sharing your bed, Abby.”

Erin quickly realized that she was going to be stuck with Holtz on the air mattress, so she protested. “Do you think maybe I could share the bed with Patty? I had a really long drive.” 

“Oh, that’s so sad for you,” said Abby with just a _little_ bit of malice in her voice. “I think you and Holtz will be just fine sleeping together on the air mattress.” This earned a glare from Holtz, but Abby pretended not to notice.

“I could just go home in the evening?” Holtz suggested, apparently trying as hard as she could not to have to share a bed with her ex-girlfriend. 

Abby gave her a look. “No. Your place is more than an hour by subway. What if we need you? Everyone is staying here until we work out this ghost situation.”

 

They decided to order pizza for dinner and crowded around the only table in Abby’s apartment that wasn’t covered with tools or projects. Erin tried to keep herself from looking at Holtz and Holtz focused on not running from the room. Patty could sense the tension, and she was having _none_ of it. “Guys, we gotta talk about this ghost. Or ghosts, as the case may be. Abby, what did it do to you?” 

“Oh, you know, the usual sort of ghost behavior. Knocking stuff over and all that. What about you?” 

Patty rolled her eyes. “How come you got off so easy? This sonofabitch stole my car keys on the morning of my exams and interrupted my Netflix time with a viedo of Holtzy dancing.” Holtzmann grinned at that. “Although, it did buy me this plane ticket, so I guess that’s something.” 

“Hang on. Erin, didn’t the ghost fill up your gas tank and send you specifically to the city?” 

“Mmhmm.”

Holtz perked up. “It also told me Abby’s address. Like, the address just showed up on a piece of paper in my apartment. Oh my god. It’s trying to bring us all together.”

“Holy shit,” said Patty. “We’ve got ourselves a sentimental ghost!”

“Alright,” started Abby, “let’s lay out all the facts we know. Holtz? Anything else to add about your ghost interactions.” 

Erin could’ve sworn Holtz blushed a little. “No, I’m good Abs.” 

Abby rolled her eyes. “Fine. Erin?”

“Um, the uh, ghost Skype-called Holtz seventeen times,” Erin admitted.

Holtz nodded in a show of understanding. “That’s who was calling me.”

Something in Erin’s stomach lurched. Holtz had deleted her Skype contact. They used to Skype whenever Erin went home to see her family. What else had she deleted. Her number? She needed to get out of there. “Excuse me, I’ve um, gotta get some air. I’ll just be outside for a sec.” With that, she dashed from the apartment, not even bothering with the elevator, and found herself in the stairwell between the third and fourth floors of the building. That was as far as she made it before she started sobbing. Holtz hated her. She _hated_ her. This was all her fault.

 

Back in the apartment, Abby slapped Holtz upside the head, and Patty kicked her under the table. “What was that for, you buffoon?” hollered Abby. “Pretending you deleted her Skype contact. That’s bullshit and we all know it. Except Erin, which is why she’s somewhere out there crying about it right now.” 

Holtzmann stood up from the table and crossed her arms. “How are you so lenient with her. She fucks up and leaves you _twice_ , and it’s like NO BIG DEAL. I have every right to be pissed.”

“Sure you do,” replies Patty, “but you don’t get to make her miserable and disrupt our whole vibe in here. Be mad on your own time, baby. This here is family time. We’re a goddamn family, and I’m gonna need you to go get that girl back up here.”

“Yes ma’am.”

 

“I didn’t delete your Skype contact.” 

Erin lifted her head from her hands and looked up to find Holtz standing a flight of stairs above her. “You found me.”

“Yeah. Look, I’m sorry for what I said.”

“Thanks. And I’m sorry for…you know.”

“Come back upstairs with me?” Holtz asked, her face soft and relaxed, if a little reserved, for the first time since Erin had arrived.

The brunette sniffled a little. “Are we gonna be okay, Holtz?”

She wasn’t sure whether Erin was referring to the fact that they were being stalked by between one and four ghosts, or to their friendship (and possible relationship), but her answer was the same for both questions. “Yes. We always find a way, don’t we? Come on. Let’s take the elevator. I am not in the mood to climb seven flights of stairs. By the way, damn, you got down these stairs _fast_. Have you been working out?” She added a gentle wink for good measure, and it only felt a little forced.

Erin laughed, and a little part of her started to believe that everything _was_ going to be alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mmmmm bed sharing ;)

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment and kudos if you are so moved. I'd love to hear your feedback :)
> 
> My tumblr is miss-minnelli.


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